Julie Farnam is an immigration specialist working with universities, the International Rescue Committee, and community groups to counsel immigration applicants on student immigration rules and regulations, and adjustment of status applications and naturalization applications. Ms. Farnam also writes on immigration and employment-related issues for several Massachusetts newspapers. She holds a Masters Degree from Lesley University, Cambridge, MA.

When the United States tightened its immigration policies in response to concerns over terrorism, Microsoft's Bill Gates and General Electric's Jeffrey Immelt warned that some of these restrictions were harmful to US economic interests. Further,...

When the United States tightened its immigration policies in response to concerns over terrorism, Microsoft's Bill Gates and General Electric's Jeffrey Immelt warned that some of these restrictions were harmful to US economic interests. Further, academic and business leaders warned that the restrictions were causing many of the world's most promising international students of science and engineering to go elsewhere. Under pressure from the academic, science and business body, in February 2005 the US State Department eased the Visa Mantis Program by extending the validity of science-related visas from one year to up to four years. Will more rational policy reforms follow? US Immigration Laws examines many of the dramatic changes that have occurred to immigration laws in recent years, and points to areas that can be adjusted to reduce needless burdens while maintaining security. Many of the policy changes discussed were implemented after the attacks of September 11, 2001, but several of these laws were created throughout the 1990s, some after the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993. The opening chapter examines that very event and the remainder of the book follows the progression of modifications in immigration laws in the US up to the present. The book concludes with an assessment of the future of immigration and immigration policies.

AN ERA OF TERRORISM BEGINSMuch attention has been paid to foreign nationals residing in the United States since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, yet in writing a book on the intersection of immigration law and terrorism in the U.S. it is necessary to look back several years, to a time when terrorism on American soil became a reality. With few exceptions, most notably Pearl Harbor in 1941, the United States has largely been exempt from the horrors of terrorism in which other countries experience with more frequency. This fortune changed for the U.S. beginning in 1993 with the World Trade Center bombing. Why the fate of the United States changed is a discussion to be explored at another time. This book instead will examine the United StatesÃ??' response to terrorism through its immigration laws. Foreign nationals committed many of the attacks that occurred against the United States since 1993 and an obvious response to these attacks would be changes in the immigration laws of the country in an effort to counter terrorists from entering the U.S. The challenge that the U.S. faces currently is how to balance the need to keep the country safe from international terrorists and how to welcome those who have legitimate reasons for coming to the country....